RailPictures.net is proud to team up with Mike Derrick and ShortlinesUSA.com on a new Short Line and Regional railroading forum to be hosted here on the RailPictures.net Forums. Mike is a very knowledgeable source of information on short line and regional railroads across the country and is the owner of the popular ShortlinesUSA.com photo gallery, showcasing some of Mike’s travels to short line railroads across the USA.

The goal of this partnership is to provide an outlet to share and exchange railfan information for short line railroads around the country. Please feel free to ask questions, share information, photos or other related items here in this forum. We look forward to working with Mike and benefiting from his many years of traveling the country in search of short line railroad operations. We hope you will find this new forum both enjoyable and useful!

Thank you, Chris. I am looking forward to getting some good discussion started on short line and regional railroading here on Railpictures.net Forums. People often ask me if there is a really good source on the internet where I get most of my information on short line railroads. The short answer is “no.” While there is plenty of information out there, it is discussed in bits and pieces on a number of sites and discussion groups. It is kind of baffling to me that there’s not a robust discussion of these operations when they outnumber the class 1s nearly 100 to 1!

I recently had the idea to start a discussion forum or blog on my site to attempt to fill this void, and Chris suggested that we partner on this new venture at Railpictures.net Forums. I gladly accepted the invitation, and I look forward to growing this forum into THE place where those seeking info or wanting to discuss short line and regional railroads can go for the information they need.

I hope you will all join me in making this forum a success. While I have been to over 200 short line and regional railroads in 41 states (it’s almost like I’m counting!), that isn’t even half of them. Where I haven’t been, many of you have. Where I have been, things have changed since I’ve been. I don’t want this to be my forum where I sit around talking about what I’ve done—I want this to be the forum to host a robust exchange of information on some of the most unique and exciting railroads in the U.S.